Agonist
Emerging from a locker room after a match, Darius returned the salute of the courier waiting for him outside.
"General." She straightened, and handed him the Zaunite-made document pouch the communications division was using these days. Offering him another salute when he dismissed her, she departed.
Turning his steps toward the Institute's Noxian wing, he frowned at the special locking mechanism and tried to remember his passcode. The first one that came to mind was his previous code, of course, but it had changed at the end of the month.
When he typed in his new code, a little beep of rejection made his frown deepen. Had he mistyped, or mixed up the last two digits? His attempted corrections garnered the same response, the sound more annoying with each repetition. Was he botching the mandatory randomized portion of the code? Hesitantly, he tried a few possible mistakes that might occur in combination with his own part of the code. Then he tried re-typing the most likely candidates a few times to account for possible mistyping.
Met by the same aggravating beep of rejection again and again, he glared at the device with a poorly-repressed snarl.
"Need some help?" The perky voice of Luxanna Crownguard interrupted his standoff with the keypad.
He eyed the Demacian girl with disfavor. Standing there in her shiny steel armor, smile practically glowing, she radiated more good cheer than he was in the mood to deal with at this point.
"Sure," he sneered, and shoved the pouch in her direction.
She accepted it with another brilliant smile and bent her head, bangs falling forward to obscure her features, fingers already flying over the buttons.
He snorted softly to himself. Let her try. He was willing to share the frustration. If he couldn't do it there was no chance in hell she... The device emitted a satisfied sounding blip and he heard the latch release.
She offered it to him, her face turned up, her eyes pulled into cheerful slits from the width of her smile. Mechanically, his hand closed around the pouch, his eyes caught on her beaming face.
He stood there dumb and staring for a long second before tearing his gaze away. A glance down at the lock showed its lights glowing green, giving silent permission to access its contents.
"How?" The incredulous word slipped off his tongue before he thought to stop it, his jaw snapping shut and locking just too late to matter.
"I'm sorry," she said,voice syrupy-sweet, smile never faltering. "Do you have trouble with the word "no" too?"
That question made no sense. Was she implying he was guilty of some kind of sexual misconduct? Intellectually, he knew he should disengage; he could feel the jaws of whatever conversational trap she had laid closing on him. However, some masochistic curiosity spurred him on.
"What?" His reaction defaulted to a neutral tone, even as his brows lowered in anger.
"Well, "spy" only has three letters, you know," she continued helpfully, the effect of her wide, innocent eyes spoiled by her smug, catlike smile. "And three is only one more letter than two."
Blocker
The door to Swain's office slammed into the wall, propelled by the force of Darius' shove. He stormed inside, his hand catching its edge as it rebounded toward him. His other hand waved the document pouch in Swain's direction.
"We've got to do something about these things!" he snarled. "People may think I only got this far through the strength of my arm, and the luck of the draw, but if I'm having trouble keeping up with my passcodes, you know half the high command is leaving themselves "convenient" little notes where any spy can snitch them."
Closing the door less forcefully than he entered still resulted in a loud bang. Swain's raven cocked her head to give him a baleful glare with three of her eyes.
"Darius." Swain's voice stayed cool as he set aside his pen and shuffled his papers into a stack, switching his focus to Darius' pacing form. "I am the last man to underestimate your political and intellectual capabilities." He paused, and Darius made a disgruntled noise of acknowledgement deep in his throat. "I assume someone has managed to call them into question while simultaneously highlighting certain deficiencies in our security?" Swain continued, raising one eyebrow in inquiry.
Darius stilled his feet, planting himself in front of Swain's desk. He gave the offending pouch one last glare before tossing it onto the desk.
"The Crownguard girl gave a personal demonstration of how easy it is to open my mail."
"Interesting." Swain reached for the pouch. His slender fingers explored the exterior, his piercing eyes lit with focus. "I wonder what the endgame of this little gambit is?"
"Nothing good for us," Darius muttered, discontent thick in his voice.
"She certainly managed to get under your skin," Swain observed, still turning the pouch in his hands.
Darius growled his assent.
"She's very good at reading people," he admitted.
Interest finally roused, Swain's raven hopped down his arm to make her own observations, tilting her head side-to-side so she could view it with all her eyes before jabbing at the flap with her beak.
"Mmm," Swain agreed. "She's wasted on the Demacians, really. Her talents would be made better use of in Noxus."
That pulled a laugh out of Darius, as the vision of any Demacian's reaction to such a remark flashed through his mind. Swain looked up from the pouch and they shared an amused glance. He motioned to one of his chairs, and Darius pulled it up to the desk. They had better get to work if they were going to head off whatever disasters she was bent on sending their way.
Author's Note
If you'd like to suggest a word for someone to get a Vocabulary Lesson about feel free to drop it in the comments, or wander over to my tumblr and put it in my ask box. (As long as you're aware that given my current To Write List and atrocious work habits I may never get to it.)